Power in international politics is mostly linked with acts of decisiveness, or military intervention, sanctions, vetoes, recognition or denial. Yet one of the most influential powers of the present day is in a much less obvious form: delay. Waiting, increasingly, is not an accident of global governance but a technique of it. In a global order where coercion is not overt, time is a fine but powerful tool of power.

Delay is political since it is administered. Who is waiting on a visa application, who is on ceasefire talks without a timeline, which sanctions are under review, whose IMF tranche is released or not, is determined by someone. Such choices are hardly reflected as rejections. They are instead in the form of procedures, assessments and technicalities. And, in IR, the controlling procedure is frequently controlling the outcome.

This logic is not new. Imperial powers governed colonies not........

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